Spurred on by baseball fans upset that a carriage dispute has kept them from watching Padres games on Time Warner Cable for a full year, local politicians in San Diego and Coronado are planning public hearings to pressure the county's second-largest cable provider into a deal.

That's right. Coronado city officials are about to join the "Padres to the People" movement.

On the heels of the announcement that five members of the San Diego City Council will meet March 14 to discuss the TV impasse, Coronado City Manager Blair King announced Friday that he has invited local TV providers to the March 19 City Council meeting there "to give an update on the broadcasting of Padres games."

Representatives from AT&T U-Verse, one of Time Warner Cable's competitors, will attend the meeting, King said in a memo to Coronado's mayor and city council members. It's unclear if Time Warner will send a representative.

"The City wants to provide the information to residents, who have been contacting the City asking that they be informed on efforts to get the Padres on their local cable TV providers," King wrote.

Left unsaid by King was that Time Warner Cable is now the only one of five major TV providers that hasn't agreed to terms with Fox Sports San Diego over televising Padres games this season. That fact has more and more fans crying foul and considering alternatives as baseball season nears; to varying degrees, these frustrated fans are blaming the two companies and the team itself for keeping the games off 22 percent of the pay TV households in the county.

The March 19 Coronado City Council meeting starts at 3 p.m. at City Hall, 1825 Strand Way. That's a Tuesday.

What actual leverage city officials have in San Diego, Coronado or anywhere is unclear. A Time Warner Cable spokesman has characterized the dispute as a private negotiation between the two companies, but San Diego City Attorney Jan Goldsmith believes his city is not just an observer in these talks that stalled months ago.

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In a Thursday letter Goldsmith sent to Time Warner Cable executive Melinda Wittmer, he referenced the deal that lets the company operate in San Diego until 2020 and wrote, "Please note that section 23 of your franchise agreement provides the City access to records concerning the operation, affairs and transactions of Time Warner."

A far from belligerent Goldsmith added: "Our request is being made in good faith without accusation or threat of any legal action. We simply believe San Diego residents are entitled to an explanation, particularly in light of federal policies."

I asked spokesmen for Goldsmith and for Time Warner Cable if the provision entitles the city to examine Time Warner Cable's financial records. Time Warner Cable didn't respond, and the city's initial response didn't clarify matters.

"Overall we feel it's not entirely a private matter as TWC asserts," Goldsmith spokesman Jonathan Heller emailed. "There is a public component to it and the franchise agreement clearly provides for a certain degree of transparency."